Best of Resfest Volume
3 (Shorts Collection)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Shorts: B-
This third DVD of shorts from the growing Resfest festival
range from 1999 – 2002, eleven in all, and offers more of a mix of live-action,
animation, and digital work that is different from what you’d see in Music
Videos or TV commercials. This set
includes the following shorts:
1)
Birdbeat (Fugue) (Geoff Adams, 4:08,
2002) – This terrific opener offers a musical conflict between a big bird and
four smaller ones simply trying to get food.
Using digital, this is exceptionally done. Hilarious and smart.
2)
Historia Del Desierto (Celia
Galan, UK/Spain, 6:06, 2001, 1.78 X 1) – Tells the story of a real-life female
serial killer in Claymation, and is good, but not as well rounded as
hoped. Rosita Guzman, “La Mocha”, was
never seen again when she escaped prison.
3)
Home Road Movies (Robert Bradbrook,
United Kingdom, 11:58, 1.78 X1) – This is an excellent piece about the
filmmakers’ childhood of traveling Europe with his family in a station wagon,
and the father who made it all happen.
The narration and art design of this combo of animation and model work
is a must-see.
4)
Japanese Tradition (Sushi) (Junji
Kojima, Japan, 8:11, 2002, 1.66 X 1) – This send-up of easting norms wears thin
quickly, only working for those who really care about food, if that. Shot on tape.
5)
Jubilee Line (Tim Hope, United Kingdom,
4:47, 2000) – Live action women are reduced to 2-D, then placed and multiplied
in a 3-D cyberworld. Very good for what
it is.
6)
The Littlest Robo (Richard Kensworthy,
United Kingdom, 9:18, 1999) – Another winner is computer animated tale of boy
who has father with insane work ethic, broken up by the arrival of a robot the
young boy has surprisingly put together.
Not much dialogue, but very effective.
The director has made music videos for bands including Blur, though it
is nothing featured on the great Best of Blur DVD. After this short, I can’t wait to see what
he did there too.
7)
Protest (S.D. Katz, 2:50, 1999, 1.78 X
1) – A fine, to-the-point piece in support of elephants and the real jeopardy
they are now facing that is being silenced by the mass media. Impressive.
See more about it as well at www.pitchtv.com
as well
8)
Rail Rode (Brian Garnell, 1:30, 2000) –
Silly piece done on tape in stop-motion as a guy “rides” his body on railroad
tracks. Maybe some laughs, but nothing
memorable otherwise.
9)
Starched (Cath Le Couteur, 5:55, 2001,
1.78 X 1) – Another short that looks better than it delivers as a hotel maid
looks for people to annoy and trophies to remember the harassment by. Good at best.
10)
The
Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (Matt McCormick, 16:01, 2001) –
Overly-long, silly pseudo-documentary about how removing graffiti is somehow a
Freudian “return of the repressed” about society and its woes. This gets tired real quickly, but might have
a few fans. Average.
11)
Terminal
Bar (Stefan Nadelman, 22:33, 2002) – Fascinating, impressive
conclusion to this DVD offers fascinating portrait of the title establishment
in a bad part of New York that really was a pillar of the community, even if it
was serving many who had no money, hope, future, or chance as most of the
customers became alcoholics. As the old
school clients died, the succeeding wave turned out to be Gay African American
males! We see over 2,500 of these
mostly-nameless clients in a program that is done on video, but is in the grand
tradition of the New York school of filmmaking.
The picture quality throughout, from badly taped and overly digital images, to
fine film reproduction is offered.
Nothing here is anamorphically enhanced, but for the type of material
shown, the transfers are decent. All
the shorts offer Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo or Mono, some of which (like Terminal
Bar) can be played back in Dolby Pro Logic. Sound is fine for the most part.
Extras include commentaries on every short, while some even offer
storyboards. There are also trailers
for all the previous Resfest events.
Overall, this collection is a bit better than Resfest 2,
but is still not a spectacular improvement over the previous set. Still, this is yet another chance to see the
rarely seen (and rarely supported) artform of the short subject.
- Nicholas Sheffo
